This is my third-favorite Impact Wrestling pay-per-view, behind TNA SEXY PATTYCAKE and TNA MEET MADDEN. That’s, uh, the one where they let Mark Madden do commentary.

Seriously though, ‘Hard Justice’ made it sound like a bad cop movie, and ‘Hardcore Justice’ makes it sound like a camgirl. It doesn’t help when your company’s name is TITS AND ASS, so your full show name is TITS AND ASS HARDCORE JUSTICE. They should find a way to call their Knockouts pay-per-view YOUNG CHEERLEADER SWAP N’ SWALLOW.

Best: A Fun Garbage Wrestling Match If You Turn Off Your Brain And Mute The Crowd

Larry from ‘Three’s Company’ should face Mr. Roper in a STAIRWAY TO JANET match.

So, okay, the gimmick of Hardcore Justice (besides making me sing “Hardcore Justice” to the tune of ‘Hardcore Country’) is hardcore matches. Just a bunch of hardcore matches. A night of extreme rules, one might say. In TNA, hardcore matches are generally 10-15 minutes of guys slowly setting up props for other guys to jump through. Early on in the match, a guy suddenly starts bleeding when it doesn’t make sense. If you like that, this match was pretty great.

Objectively, I kinda like what they’re doing with Bram. Abyss is so much like Kane that he’s got Kane’s “neutered, couldn’t hurt a fly” vibe, so establishing this new crazy dude who will show up to hardcore matches in his underpants and go through barbed wire boards is important. How much does Abyss have left in the tank, honestly? Did Abyss ever buy a tank? Bram’s got WWE developmental training, the perfect boring look TNA loves and the ability to fall onto a bunch of sharp shit and smile about it. If that’s marketable anywhere, it’s in the roving Impact Zone. Plus, seriously, f*ck Abyss. Everybody beats Abyss. He went from being the most compelling character on the show (Joseph Park) to being a fatter X-Pac in a Groot mask.

Worst: TNA Hardcore

I’ve probably written about it before, but “Janice” is so dumb. It’s a board with a bunch of nails in it. Getting hit by that should be INSTANT, BLOODY DEATH. If you’re going to have a Stairway To Janice match, this is how it should go down: it should slowly build and build using the idea that the wrestlers are bloodthirsty, but also terrified of what might happen to them if they don’t grab Janice first. Somebody pulls down Janice, boom, five seconds of gore and we’re out. The end.

I’m not advocating somebody taking a nailboard to the forehead, but I’ve seen hardcore wrestling. I’ve seen Tournaments of Death. I follow Big Japan as closely as I can without getting light tube dust in my eyes. If you’re gonna swing a nailboard, swing a nailboard. Don’t half-ass it. Gimmick it to death if you want, but at least put enough effort into it to create a substantial, believable-if-you-blink visual. Nail to skin. That should be the only time someone bleeds in a Stairway to Janice match, and it should be ALL THE BLOOD. It’s a weapon horrifying enough to demand its own gimmick match, right?

Instead, we get a match featuring ladder bumps, MULTIPLE barbed wire boards and a spot where Bram blades because he HIT THE RING STEPS WITH HIS SHOULDER. Just straight across the forehead on a steps bump. If hitting the steps busted you open, John Cena would be a bloodbath after every match. Then they break out thumbtacks, which are basically nails minus 100% of the damage, and do a bunch of moves onto them. By the time that we’ve bled everywhere AND stabbed each other with sharp objects, Janice gets pulled down so that we can … not bleed and NOT stab each other with sharp objects!

Like always, Abyss misses with his swings and gets hit in the stomach. Bram grabs Janice, slowly presses it into the baggiest part of Abyss’s shirt, and Abyss kinda flops over to the side holding his gut like he’s been kneed by Alistair Overeem. If you get hit in the stomach with a gigantic board of nails, your sell isn’t “oof, I’m gonna throw up,” it’s “OH GOD MY INTESTINES ARE FALLING OUT OF MY BODY SOMEONE PLEASE HELP.” It should be terror and exploding bloodpacks and prop horror movie guts everywhere. I don’t care. If you’re booking a HIT ME WITH A BOARD WITH 100 NAILS STICKING OUT OF IT match you’ve already gone bonkers. Go all of the bonkers.

YouTube

Worst: Everyone On This Show Is A Horrible Person

“Hey Bram, congratulations on winning your match!”
“thanks bro it was tough”
“So hey listen I wanted to let you know that NOBODY OUTSHINES MAGNUS, I’M GUNNING FOR YOU”
“SAY IT TO MY FACE”
“GRRRRR”
“GRRRRR”
“Anyway, take it easy. You coming out for drinks later?”
“Maybe, gotta check and see if Velvet Sky’s had her life threatened today, if not, sure, why not?”
“Hahah what a bitch”
“I know, right? All the women here are such bitches.”
“And the men.”
“Oh definitely the men. The men are definitely bitches. Super bitches.”
“WAIT A MINUTE I’M A MAN, WHO ARE YOU CALLING A BITCH”
“I’M CALLING YOU A BITCH. I CALLS EM LIKE I SEES EM”
“hey what time is it”
“like 9:30, why?”
“shit, hang on, I need to make a phone call.”

My bad, I didn’t get the joke. I loved the TITS AND ASS HARDCORE JUSTICE joke though. Can’t stop picturing all the titles now in that way. I think TITS AND ASS TURNING POINT works pretty well too. Maybe even TITS AND ASS RIVALS???

Dude, if you’re going to relentlessly shit on this product, then why even bother writing about it? Do you need more internet cool points? Do you feel tough when you suggest that a bunch of wrestlers should be MURDERED, or do you feel clever that you worked in an awkward-ass Ferguson reference?

It was pretty clear from jump that you were going to hate the show, bully the performers, and nitpick the production. Oh, gosh, the guardrail is in the wrong place for you?

Did you say a single, non-ironic positive thing? Get over yourself, would you?

You got me, man. This was just to arbitrarily shit on a wrestling show I don’t like, and contained no dense paragraphs of explanation rationalizing and explaining my points. I just hate them because they’re stupid and I’m awful!

Is TNA making up ground for all the Joseph Park stuff by now booking Abyss EXCLUSIVELY in Monster Ball matches? It seems like after Joseph Park’s last promo, where he lamented all those tack and barbed wire bumps, after Russo came in, and they completely ignored Jo Park, every Abyss match has been a Monster’s Ball match.

I missed last night’s match, because I forgot about TNA moving or something, but how am I suppose to get excited for a guy in a Walk to the Prop match, when this is literally the only ting he does?

AJ Styles is always going to be noticed by the Japanese fans as long as he stays over there because he does two moves that the Japanese fans absolutely adore.

1) Kip up – Japanese fans go nuts for kip ups

2) Dropkick – AJ has arguably the best dropkick in the business (Okada might have something to say about that). Japanese fans pop like crazy for dropkicks.

Holmes has been killing it over in Japan and has very much won the Japanese fans over. If he develops a really sweet lariat he could be about as popular as a gaijin can get.

As for Hard(core) Justice, I thoroughly enjoyed the X division title match and the KOs title match was enjoyable as well. The rest of the show was kind of a blur to me because I kept checking out mentally. I skipped most of the Stairway to Janice (LOL) match because I’m not a big fan of death matches, plus Abyss & Bram have already done the exact same match several times before this.

Thanks for mentioning Ziggler. I had forgotten about him. I’ve grown to hate his character since he turned face so much that I’ve been mentally tuning out of his matches (if not straight up switching the channel).

I’d rank ’em:

1) Styles
2) Ziggler
3) Okada

Styles’ dropkick is masterful. He leapfrogs the opponent, then drops down while moving away from the ropes his opponent is about to hit to get extra space, then jumps forward, hits the opponent high on the chest, just under his chin, springs off their chest, flips over, lands on his belly, then immediately springs to his feet to pose to thunderous applause. He’s got it down to an art form, it looks freakin’ spectacular, and he’s insanely consistent with it.

Extreme? Sounds more like a practice session back in the day for a good chunk of the ECW roster and/or Cactus Jack. Nothing was on fire, no one was doing a veritable death drop off the top of a steel cage onto a table, no one was on fire, no one lost any bits of their body (including teeth), no one was pelted with garbage, or buried under a mountain of folding chairs. FEH. There wasn’t even a Hardcore Holly.

Love the review, usually agree with Brandon and love his sense of humour but the Social Justice Warrior act is a bit annoying…of course I’m referring to bringing up Ferguson in relation to someone being arrested on a Wrestling show (and not a black person, in which case I would be able to find at least the worlds most tenuous link to grasp at…nevermind the fact that segment was probably taped weeks ago). I’m so far Left I’m practically Marxist but the whole “Hyper-Sensitive and Constantly Looking For A Tempest In A Teacup” thing that a lot of Liberals do in the social media age really makes my skin crawl. You’re reviewing a wrestling show, I think you can leave the social commentary aside, enlightening as it is.

Say what you will about Mike Tenay but at least he makes an attempt at calling a match and he even uses the correct terms for various wrestling moves. I feel like the one take away Vince had from the Monday Night Wars was ” Think how much more dominant we would have been if we had just had Tony Schiavone calling our matches.”

Janice is in the HHH Sledgehammer/Berserker’s sword of REALLY shtupid wrestling weapons. Because if you have one of those things, and are going to use it to hurt someone, wouldn’t you just murderdeathkill them in the face with it? I mean, as kinda dumb as the cinderblock spot was on Raw, at least they followed through with it. Every time HHH has looked like he’s going to use the sledgehammer like an actual sledgehammer, they have to do the long drawn-out tease that ends in a ref/manager pulling the hammer away while he’s got it drawn back. And so the only actual times he “hits” someone with the hammer, it’s in the way no one would ever use it – as a weird, short range “punch multiplier.” And so it is with Janice. You can’t REALLY hit someone in the face with a nailbat on TV/at a wrestling show, so all the teases just end up with Abyss being crotched and then tapped in his heavily covered midsection.

I get it, you’re trying to make Abyss look CRAAAAAZY. But it ends up just being as stupid as the Sinister Minister “blinding” people with fire. There’s no way people would continue to employ someone who’s that much of a liability to the rest of the expensive talent. And yet, TNA, so there you have it.

EC3 being so awesome in TNA makes me wonder why WWE released him last year.

I loved the spot where Gail Kim Samoan Dropping Angelina Love onto a pile of chairs.

I also loved the spot in the six sides of steel match where Bobby Roode, Eric Young and Austin Aries had the Crossface, Sharpshooter and the Last Chancery on at the same time and the 2 Superplexes and Powerbombs in 2 opposite corners at the same time.